Opening a Shop

"I feel like I'm about to go mad!"

Sirius Black tossed the rag aside and dropped into a chair. They had been cleaning 12 Grimmauld Place for several days straight, putting in tremendous effort just to clear away the dust, cobwebs, and heaps of miscellaneous junk.

Yet even now, they had not thoroughly cleaned a single room. Making the place fit for people to live in was no easy task.

Sometimes magic was not as useful as one imagined, especially when dealing with a house that had not been cleaned in over a decade. Even ordering rags to scrub diligently did not make it easy to get everything truly clean. Quite a few stubborn patches of mould had to be slowly scrubbed away with great effort.

"Don't slack off, Sirius. Think about Harry. If you want to bring Harry to live with you at 12 Grimmauld Place, you need to clean this place properly." Lupin frowned at the listless Sirius. He had long guessed that the other man's patience was nearly exhausted. Most male wizards were not good at housework, and they usually preferred solving problems with magic.

"I'll give Harry a new home, but let me rest first!" Sirius poured himself a glass of Butterbeer, took a large sip, and changed the subject. "Did you return that Galleon payment to him?"

"Mr. Anderson has already received the Order of Merlin, Third Class. I suppose he probably no longer needs me to help test that spell." Lupin sighed softly. "Besides, I thought he was paying too much from the very beginning."

"He only shared some of the five thousand Galleons he got out of me with you." Sirius drained his Butterbeer, glared at the sneaky shadow outside the door, and used his wand to shut the wooden door. He continued,